Over the past 25 years, we have never seen anything like the demand for travel talent we witnessed last year – it was a fantastic, record-breaking year, with every single travel company looking for staff. But 2022 was always going to be an anomaly due to the pent-up demand from the pandemic.

In 2023, we obviously have to be mindful of a potential economic downturn, and prepare for what might happen. However, the year has started well, with new travel job vacancies and placements both still way up on historical averages.

On the leisure side, luxury and cruise were the first to come back after the pandemic, but all travel companies – luxury tour operators, cruise lines, cruise retailers and OTAs, among others – are still recruiting. We certainly haven’t seen any signs at all of a halt in recruitment.

Nevertheless, we are speaking to our clients constantly to make sure we are all one step ahead of the curve so we can understand their hiring plans and build that into our recruitment strategy.

There is a bit more caution among TMCs. We are seeing a slight downturn in their requirements, with one or two recruitment freezes as well. However, from our experience, as soon as a freeze is lifted among TMCs, recruitment returns ten-fold.

Some of the big TMCs are not hiring for permanent staff in the numbers we saw last year. In those cases, we expect to see an increase in demand for temporary staff because this allows them the flexibility to increase or decrease headcount depending on business needs from week to week. Following any global event over the past couple of decades, we have always seen more demand for temps as a result.

Look for attitude before skills

After years of comparatively low pay, we finally saw a big increase in travel salaries in 2022 – largely as part of a concerted effort to tempt talented individuals back to the industry.

It’s unrealistic to expect wages to increase at the same pace as last year, but they will carry on going up in 2023 because we need to make sure travel is in line with other industries. Otherwise, we simply are not going to attract people to work in travel.

Many candidates want full remote working, so companies will need to offer that flexibility. It is a still very much a candidate-driven market so companies have to be as flexible as possible. Offering hybrid or fully remote working will really widen the talent pool.

Travel companies will need to adjust their expectations when looking to hire this year. That could be in terms of salaries and flexibility, but also by broadening what they are looking for.

They don’t need to lower their standards, but they should liaise with their recruiter and aim to recruit based on a candidate’s attitude and fit because skills can be taught later.

It’s more important than ever to be open-minded when hiring because if the specific candidates you’re looking for aren’t there, you’re not going to find them.

For lower-level consultant or sales roles, a lot of companies are now looking outside the box, and are not necessarily just hiring people from the travel industry or with a travel background. They are looking for people with passion, destination knowledge and personal travel experience.

There are some brilliant people out there that might not have the exact pre-requisites a company is looking for, but if they have a great attitude and other relevant skills, that will more than compensate – and they will prove to be great additions to the travel industry.

While it’s unlikely to be quite as busy a year as last year, 2023 looks set to be an extremely healthy one for travel recruitment, with many companies looking to strengthen their teams with exciting new talent.

And with the candidate shortage likely to continue, everyone in travel needs to do whatever they can to engage, encourage and inspire talented individuals to join this great industry.

Barbara Kolosinska is managing director of C&M Travel Recruitment and C&M Executive Recruitment.